Iceland has been a "hot" destination for many european travellers (and not only) the past 8 years and is constantly on the rise despite it being one of the most expensive places to travel,along with Switzerland and the other Nordic countries--London isnt that far behind. Low cost airlines have been expanding, along the years, their network to KEF adding flights from many big and smaller cities, seasonally or year-round..U2,Wizzair,WOW,Eurowings,Norwegian,Transavia..and so did many legacies with AF,LH,OS,SK..But still FR is absent..Why is that? As one of the largest, if not the largest low cost airline in Europe,who's never been one to shy away from competition against other LCCs,one would think that it would have jumped at the chance to offer low-fares and stimulate more travel to KEF, not only from its big bases but also from its smaller ones,following the classic pattern of few weekly flights to a certain destination like Wizz does..Nope.! It has left all the KEF-hot cake to its competitors..U2,WOW(even with financial woes plagueing it) and then Wizz..Any thoughts?
Oh and another thing..Same question,different player..KLM! There is def a lot of traffic from AMS to KEF..Both WOW and Icelandair fly double daily in the summer..So 4 flights a day and no dutch company to serve the dutch..Neither KLM nor HV..It still has me scratching my head..And don't tell me there isn't premium traffic for the company to fill a business class when Icelandair does it with a 763!

Prices are down the drain. That migh stop KLM (I think there was a tread on this a few years ago).

Prices that are low do not stop Ryanair though and I guess we will see them in KEF once they have enough points on the map elsewhere. Seems Ryanair found a new niche with Israel and Jordan. Also with wow & icelandair and enough tourists their is no incentive to offer incentives to Ryanair to start a flight which seem to be part of their business model.

found the KLM topic (was mid this year)

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1396299

Thanx devron for the KLM link..read it..(still one would wonder why KLM cant make it and LH can? )

marcogr12 wrote:

So 4 flights a day and no dutch company to serve the dutch..!

This is pretty hilarious logic. As though the Dutch people can't fly on a non-Dutch airline. You should see Icelandair, WOW, Wizz, KLM, and so on as what they are. European airlines serving Europeans and anyone else who wishes to travel with them. I would be more concerned if it was American Airlines flying AMS-KEF than a European airline serving the two points.

KLM can probably use their assets more profitably serving other stations. This is usually one reason for airlines entering and leaving markets. The other is that they keep loss making stations for connecting traffic - however in this case KEF would not even be on the radar.

With regards to Ryanair, it's possible that the costs don't add up in their favour. I can't see KEF giving them any discounts to start new routes as business is booming there. Also, there is no secondary unused airport for Ryanair to go into - though I wouldn't put it past them to have Reykjavik (Akureyri) on their route map ... and so on and so on.

It just doesn't seem to fit their model. Also, it's 2 hours 20 minutes from Dublin, and further from all the other Ryanair bases, so once again they can probably use their aircraft to make more money elsewhere.

Dutch people are known for being very price concious, to the level of being called frugal. So they wouldn't mind at all flying a LCC, and nowadays, who really does mind anyway. So with a lot of (even widebody) flights to a very small destination the market just isn't there. Secondly in this regard, KLM does transfers, with a lot of focus on EU-North America, but that market isn't there in Iceland (why fly the other way first?).

The Iceland-Asia market might be there, but then as i said, the market is very small, Iceland is very small and the market is way overcrowded. The Icelandic aviation market is starting to be a huge bubble about to burst.

If KEF started to offer subsidies FR would be all over it like a rash, but with everyone else beating a path to their door, KEF doesn't need to

At the moment their network focus is based on three main opportunities:

1. Expanding their Central Europe to the Med presence (incl. Laudamotion and Ryanair Sun)
2. Expanding their Regional France presence (French transport operators are prepared to go anywhere - so long as it's Paris )
3. Keeping flexibility to expand in Sweden and Norway if Norwegian goes bust

Those opportunities are infinitely more scalable than Iceland (or Cyprus for that matter).

Ryanair has a fairly formulaic strategy and Iceland fails to fit it in two key ways from what I can tell. Firstly, sector lengths to mainland Europe are further than Ryanair targets. Sector lengths are important to Ryanair because they need to balance flights per aircraft per day to maximise utilisation and ancillary sale opportunities. Secondly, Iceland is highly seasonal. Ryanair targets 95% load factor year round with fares adjusting to deliver 180 passengers per flight. In reality they'd struggle to do that outside of summer on many routes at any price because it is not a high volume market.

How “efficient” with fuel load requirements are the UK-Iceland flights? All airlines are efficient and cost-conscious of the fuel costs these days, but Ryanair if anything even more. I can only think of Ponta Delgada or Lajes in Portugal (Azores) as anything “similar” in all FR network, very remote places.

If for fuel requirements FR needed to charge fuel as to be able to divert to the alternative (in UK- mainland?) always, without any subsidies from local governments (likely the case in Iceland), KEF becomes much less of a priority for Ryanair.

aviatorcraig wrote:

If KEF started to offer subsidies FR would be all over it like a rash, but with everyone else beating a path to their door, KEF doesn't need to

That is worth emphasizing. KEF will not do anything special for FR. I'm not saying they would create obstacles, but with most small airports effectively subsidizing startup costs for FR, the business case cannot be as good as other FR locations.

Lightsaber

But Ryanair has long ago abandoned the only-secondary-discounted airports and is now playing ball with the big guys in major airports where heavy discounts are not always the norm..MAD,BCN,LIS,FCO,MXP,ATH,FRA,AMS...even at expensive scandic airports like CPH and OSL..And as for sector length, Ryanair already flies a lot of N.Europe to the Canaries which is 4-5h flights,longer than KEF would be on many routes..And lets not forget flights to PFO and TLV which take about 5h..As for the seasonality factor, not all routes would be seasonal methinks..And FR,like U2, has a lot of seasonal routes to the Med mainly

FlyRow wrote:

Dutch people are known for being very price concious, to the level of being called frugal. So they wouldn't mind at all flying a LCC, and nowadays, who really does mind anyway. So with a lot of (even widebody) flights to a very small destination the market just isn't there. Secondly in this regard, KLM does transfers, with a lot of focus on EU-North America, but that market isn't there in Iceland (why fly the other way first?).

The Iceland-Asia market might be there, but then as i said, the market is very small, Iceland is very small and the market is way overcrowded. The Icelandic aviation market is starting to be a huge bubble about to burst.

I understand what you re saying but LH does rely a lot on tranfers too ,EU-N.America big time,and still fly the route...How is KLM any different in this regard?

marcogr12 wrote:

But Ryanair has long ago abandoned the only-secondary-discounted airports and is now playing ball with the big guys in major airports where heavy discounts are not always the norm..MAD,BCN,LIS,FCO,MXP,ATH,FRA,AMS...even at expensive scandic airports like CPH and OSL..And as for sector length, Ryanair already flies a lot of N.Europe to the Canaries which is 4-5h flights,longer than KEF would be on many routes..And lets not forget flights to PFO and TLV which take about 5h..

True, but so far their presence at most of the major airports is limited. Mostly they're still bigger at the smaller airports than at the bigger ones. Also, comparing the fees out of the primary airports to the fees out of the secondary, the latter are on average still a bit cheaper. So they do fly into primary airports, they just charge a few euros more for that to cover the higher costs.

And they don't even fly into all major airports. In Paris for example, they serve neither Charles de Gaulle nor Orly. They seem very satisfied with Beauvais and to a lesser extent Vatry. There are slots available at Charles de Gaulle, Ryanair can have them if they want. They don't.

Of course you're right about sector length. Staying in Paris, the furthest destination Ryanair serves from Beauvais is Tenerife South. That's quite a bit further than Keflavik. However as mentioned before, Keflavik is highly seasonal. Tenerife on the other hand works year-round. However in the summer time I got no doubt they can make a route like Beauvais - Keflavik work.

What they need for that in the first place are slots. Keflavik is heavily slot controlled, so it's not easy to get in. However I got the feeling they're just waiting for WOW Air to go bust so they can lay their hands on some of the slots.

FlyRow wrote:

Dutch people are known for being very price concious

...is there a given nationality of people who aren't?

Ryanair01 wrote:

French transport operators are prepared to go anywhere - so long as it's Paris

Sad, but true.

marcogr12 wrote:

Thanx devron for the KLM link..read it..(still one would wonder why KLM cant make it and LH can? )

With FR competing against LH on its home turf, for how much longer at FRA until it gets shifted to XG to stave off FR? (LH currently operates the route on an A320.) As for FRA, Fraport did offer Ryanair some discounts to attract FR. If and when WW goes kaput, I'd be surprised if LH kept FRA-KEF on its main metal.

FR only flies ex major airports if there is a chance to make money.MAD has a ton of free capacities left,so the charges are very likely very low.FRA has offered them some discount cause with the new runway,new terminal capacities and terminal 3 in future they also have a lot of capacity to fill.
FR also flies main routes if they are popular enough to charge high fares(e.g. FRA-BCN or FRA-MAD)
The main goal for FR is to make as much money as possible with as little effort as possible.And as long as a route can fullfill that ,FR will try that route.
But regarding KEF i think there is already too much competition.There are LCC, legacy carriers and holiday charter carriers offering flights to KEF; i can`t imagine that FR would be able to get the profit they want out of any route to KEF.

It probably comes down to subsidies. Ryanair flies to remote places (e.g. Eilat, Aqaba, Ponta Delgada) if they can get some money. Iceland or KEF have no incentive to have Ryanair flying there given that 1) there are already two Icelandic carriers and 2) Iceland is already pass the point of being an overcrowded tourism destination.

While what you re all sayin makes perfect sense, could it also be that FR didnt move fast enough?I mean Easy started flyin' to KEF long ago and on the other hand Wizzair,which is a lot like FR also goes after subsidies and incentives, grabbed the chance to introduce year round flights from WAW,BUD,LTN,VIE,RIX and Wroclaw,Gdansk,Bergen..

If they are still serious about TATL, then this is an ideal opportunity.

Would finish WOW at the same time.

I also think Ryanair kind of prefers low-yielding markets, where they can truly become the leader on low fares. They are number one pretty much everywhere they operate - that's true. But the region least explored by them is Scandinavia and Finland. Norwegian might be the reason, but also the fact that Ryanair is, despite the latest attempts to bright the brand a bit up, a leisure operator. They can capture some traffic in say... Oslo-Stansted or Copenhaguen-Stansted, but they must admit they won't ever capture any business traffic. So, maybe that's another point for not making the way up to Keflavik.

It's definitely Wizzair the low-yielding/expats transporter to Iceland from Europe point to point.

a350lover wrote:

I also think Ryanair kind of prefers low-yielding markets, where they can truly become the leader on low fares. They are number one pretty much everywhere they operate - that's true. But the region least explored by them is Scandinavia and Finland. Norwegian might be the reason, but also the fact that Ryanair is, despite the latest attempts to bright the brand a bit up, a leisure operator. They can capture some traffic in say... Oslo-Stansted or Copenhaguen-Stansted, but they must admit they won't ever capture any business traffic. So, maybe that's another point for not making the way up to Keflavik.

It's definitely Wizzair the low-yielding/expats transporter to Iceland from Europe point to point.

I think you’re contradicting yourself a bit there, KEF would hardly be regarded as a high yield destination.

They aren't subsidies from airports: they are incentives. And they are a key part of airport route development. Incentives are available to all depending on what you are offering - new routes, growth rates, X volume, flying at off-peak times, etc., etc., depending on airport - and how good you are at negotiating. I bet all airlines at KEF will be benefiting to varying degrees from incentives. A two-second search on Google gives us KEF's incentive schemes: https://www.isavia.is/en/corporate/busi ... incentives They'll probably also have a range of other discounts.

Eicvd if that were true why would BA fly from LHR or SAS or LH to KEF? Biz class is a big part of their revenues...There must be some high yield traffic there,otherwise they would have left the field solely to LCCs..Even FI flies 2 763s daily to LHR..They ve got to fill those planes profitably somehow or they wouldnt fly to one of the most expensive airports in the world

a350lover wrote:

I also think Ryanair kind of prefers low-yielding markets, where they can truly become the leader on low fares. They are number one pretty much everywhere they operate - that's true. But the region least explored by them is Scandinavia and Finland. Norwegian might be the reason, but also the fact that Ryanair is, despite the latest attempts to bright the brand a bit up, a leisure operator. They can capture some traffic in say... Oslo-Stansted or Copenhaguen-Stansted, but they must admit they won't ever capture any business traffic. So, maybe that's another point for not making the way up to Keflavik.

It's definitely Wizzair the low-yielding/expats transporter to Iceland from Europe point to point.

FR carry a lot of business travellers: around 30% - or 40m - of their passengers travel for that reason. Of course, the vast majority will be from SMEs who are more price sensitive. Indeed, FR has been increasingly targeting business travellers in the past few years especially from their AGB plan.

FR's appeal to business passengers can be seen in different ways, e.g.:

a) they have high frequencies on particular routes, e.g. DUB-UK and to across many routes to STN
b) why they are increasingly moving into major airports
c) why, for certain major routes, they are timed such; d) why they began a business fare as part of their AGB plan

Pe@rson wrote:

They aren't subsidies from airports: they are incentives. And they are a key part of airport route development. Incentives are available to all depending on what you are offering - new routes, growth rates, X volume, flying at off-peak times, etc., etc., depending on airport - and how good you are at negotiating. I bet all airlines at KEF will be benefiting to varying degrees from incentives. A two-second search on Google gives us KEF's incentive schemes: https://www.isavia.is/en/corporate/busi ... incentives They'll probably also have a range of other discounts.

I don't get your point. KEF might not give subsidies to airlines, but many other airports give subsidies to Ryanair (or other carriers).

SCQ83 wrote:

Pe@rson wrote:

They aren't subsidies from airports: they are incentives. And they are a key part of airport route development. Incentives are available to all depending on what you are offering - new routes, growth rates, X volume, flying at off-peak times, etc., etc., depending on airport - and how good you are at negotiating. I bet all airlines at KEF will be benefiting to varying degrees from incentives. A two-second search on Google gives us KEF's incentive schemes: https://www.isavia.is/en/corporate/busi ... incentives They'll probably also have a range of other discounts.

I don't get your point. KEF might not give subsidies to airlines, but many other airports give subsidies to Ryanair (or other carriers).

KEF does give incentives, hence the link. Every airline is eligible for them subject to meeting the requirements. This is obvious. As I mentioned, incentives are a key part route development for almost all airports.

Pe@rson wrote:

KEF does give incentives, hence the link. Every airline is eligible for them. And no doubt additional ones too.

Yes, but Ryanair usually looks for subsidies (aka wire transfer). For instance, in Eilat they get 60 EUR per seat.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/bus ... -1.5444700

Tourism Minister Yariv Levin adopted a practice used by many other countries, including ones that compete with Israel for tourists, by paying airlines flying into Eilat’s Ovda Airport a subsidy of 45 euros ($53) per passenger during the peak winter season. The Eilat Hotels Association agreed to kick in an additional 15 euros.

Probably Aqaba also offers something similar. So Ryanair doesn't have any problem with flying multiple 5-hour routes from Central Europe to Israel / Jordan.

If KEF would pay 60 EUR to Ryanair for flying to Europe, they would no doubt fly there.

SCQ83 wrote:

Pe@rson wrote:

KEF does give incentives, hence the link. Every airline is eligible for them. And no doubt additional ones too.

Yes, but Ryanair usually looks for subsidies (aka wire transfer). For instance, in Eilat they get 60 EUR per seat.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/bus ... -1.5444700

Tourism Minister Yariv Levin adopted a practice used by many other countries, including ones that compete with Israel for tourists, by paying airlines flying into Eilat’s Ovda Airport a subsidy of 45 euros ($53) per passenger during the peak winter season. The Eilat Hotels Association agreed to kick in an additional 15 euros.

Probably Aqaba also offers something similar. So Ryanair doesn't have any problem with flying multiple 5-hour routes from Central Europe to Israel / Jordan.

If KEF would pay 60 EUR to Ryanair for flying to Europe, they would no doubt fly there.

There are extraordinarily few examples like that that are so explicit. There might well be some subsidies from local authorities to drive service and tourism and economic performance.

Most European airports just have normal incentives - which can be very enticing - plus marketing support. And anything else that can be negotiated on top, e.g. a bigger discount for X based on if strategically important to the airport.

FR could no doubt get a decent deal now from KEF, hence why W6 - which is as cost conscious - has increasingly expanded there and now has 9 routes.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

What they need for that in the first place are slots. Keflavik is heavily slot controlled, so it's not easy to get in. However I got the feeling they're just waiting for WOW Air to go bust so they can lay their hands on some of the slots.

Why is an airport with around 70 daily arrivals heavily slot controlled? Looking at today there are two 1,5 hour windows, one two hour window and one almost three hour window with zero arrivals.

marcogr12 wrote:

Eicvd if that were true why would BA fly from LHR or SAS or LH to KEF? Biz class is a big part of their revenues...There must be some high yield traffic there,otherwise they would have left the field solely to LCCs..Even FI flies 2 763s daily to LHR..They ve got to fill those planes profitably somehow or they wouldnt fly to one of the most expensive airports in the world

Where did I say KEF had no high yield appeal at all? I said it wouldn’t have much, KEF is hardly London or Frankfurt. I can admit my home city of DUB isn’t the most high yielding destination but it still has plenty of business class options too. Don’t forget FIs main appeal is connections, they can easily fill those aircraft with connections not O&D alone.

MartijnNL wrote:

PatrickZ80 wrote:

What they need for that in the first place are slots. Keflavik is heavily slot controlled, so it's not easy to get in. However I got the feeling they're just waiting for WOW Air to go bust so they can lay their hands on some of the slots.

Why is an airport with around 70 daily arrivals heavily slot controlled? Looking at today there are two 1,5 hour windows, one two hour window and one almost three hour window with zero arrivals.

You need to look at infrastructure - runway and ground - to consider. KEF is actually a Level 3 slot controlled the airport, i.e. the highest. Of course, this is from its peak periods at which time its infrastructure isn't adequate, hence the need to control who and how many uses it. Alongside this is KEF's incentives for airlines to operate at off-peak times.

Pe@rson wrote:

eicvd wrote:

Why is an airport with around 70 daily arrivals heavily slot controlled? Looking at today there are two 1,5 hour windows, one two hour window and one almost three hour window with zero arrivals.

You need to look at infrastructure - runway and ground - to consider. KEF is actually a Level 3 slot controlled the airport, i.e. the highest. Of course, this is from its peak periods at which time its infrastructure isn't adequate, hence the need to control who and how many uses it. Alongside this is KEF's incentives for airlines to operate at off-peak times.

Indeed the reason why this airport is slot controlled isn't runway capacity, it's terminal capacity. The terminal in Keflavik is actually rather small, meaning they can't serve too many aircraft at once.

bennett123 wrote:

If they are still serious about TATL, then this is an ideal opportunity.

Would finish WOW at the same time.

Ryanair are not ''still'' serious about TATL.

If you have been reading these threads over the last few years or reading other aviation or travel related websites you would have read that Ryanair and in particular Mr O Leary have officially stated on numerous occasions that the airline has no interest in entering the TATL market.

Ryanair have had many opportunities to enter the TATL market in one way or another and if they were serious enough they would would have done so by now.

Ryanair are doing what they do best and that's to concentrate and expand their current markets.

On a side note Ryanair wouldn't be such an awful airline to travel on if it wasn't for the continuous announcements made onboard by mono tone flight attendants who you can hardly understand especially regarding onboard sales and those lottery tickets.

After over 100 flights with Ryanair it's because of the above that I haven't flown with them for over three years.

Regarding Ryanair and Iceland, Ryanair have had every opportunity to enter the Icelandic market and could have done so way back in 2001 when British Airways former low cost operation GO inaugurated STN to KEF.

But for reasons only known to Ryanair the airline has declined to enter the Icelandic market.

BEABOAC wrote:

bennett123 wrote:

If they are still serious about TATL, then this is an ideal opportunity.

Would finish WOW at the same time.

Ryanair are not ''still'' serious about TATL.

Iceland is only halfway TATL, and honestly Ryanair is on the wrong side of the pond when it comes to competition. The Europe - Iceland market is saturated with LCCs, making it very hard. The America - Iceland market, not so much. No American or Canadian LCC flies to Iceland, Icelandair and WOW Air got that market to themselves.

But would Ryanair, or whatever non-Icelandic European LCC, be allowed to set up a base in Iceland and start flights to America from there? After all Iceland is not a member of the EU. Flights between Iceland and the EU would be no problem, but the other way?

Pe@rson wrote:

FR carry a lot of business travellers: around 30% - or 40m - of their passengers travel for that reason.

I can live in Berlin, have a meeting in London, use a coworking room, grab my dinner back home at M&S, and do all that in a day flying FR Schoenefeld-Stansted. I'd be traveling for business, but I am pretty sure you get to see the difference. Short-haul business is just about lots of frequencies and AC utilisation. Legacy carriers already do so quite well, but on top of that can maintain decent level of yields in key business routes thanks to the first rows/Business class. Ryanair can just do the first thing.

That pax is equally low-yielding no matter if they fly Ryanair or they fly in row 24D of a British Airways jet. I fully agree on the fact that Ryanair can be a good choice for many people who travel for business purposes, but still of a low-yielding profile.

eicvd wrote:

I think you’re contradicting yourself a bit there, KEF would hardly be regarded as a high yield destination.

I meant Ryanair isn't exactly the number one in Scandinavia. Certainly not in Iceland where they do not operate at all.

Although high-yields and high income doesn't necessarily go together, I believe Ryanair tends to be more successful in "less strong economies", like the ones from South/Eastern Europe where they have a great piece of the market. With lower costs in the operation, and with a target audience which will always care about price.

a350lover wrote:

Pe@rson wrote:

FR carry a lot of business travellers: around 30% - or 40m - of their passengers travel for that reason.

I can live in Berlin, have a meeting in London, use a coworking room, grab my dinner back home at M&S, and do all that in a day flying FR Schoenefeld-Stansted. I'd be traveling for business, but I am pretty sure you get to see the difference. Short-haul business is just about lots of frequencies and AC utilisation. Legacy carriers already do so quite well, but on top of that can maintain decent level of yields in key business routes thanks to the first rows/Business class. Ryanair can just do the first thing.

That pax is equally low-yielding no matter if they fly Ryanair or they fly in row 24D of a British Airways jet. I fully agree on the fact that Ryanair can be a good choice for many people who travel for business purposes, but still of a low-yielding profile.

But given the focus on its Plus and Flex Plus branded fares - incl a number of important features - we should assume it's pretty popular for business pax. Of course, we don't know the % take up of those branded fares.

Using your example of SXF in early Feb:

SXF-STN: 0630-0725; normal fare €29.99; Plus €55; Flex Plus €76
STN-SXF: 1810-2100 or 1905-2155; €61; €91; or €115

a350lover wrote:

I meant Ryanair isn't exactly the number one in Scandinavia. Certainly not in Iceland where they do not operate at all.

Although high-yields and high income doesn't necessarily go together, I believe Ryanair tends to be more successful in "less strong economies", like the ones from South/Eastern Europe where they have a great piece of the market. With lower costs in the operation, and with a target audience which will always care about price.

IMO FR would be a good fit for Iceland. FR could work well at KEF notably linked FR bases in Western Europe which are not currently connected with Iceland and are too small for FI/WW but fit with Ryanair's business model. What Wizzair does in Eastern Europe - KEF.

FR bases like Karlsruhe, Bremen, Bologna, Eindhoven, Charleroi, Marseille, Bergamo, Pisa, Porto, Lisbon, Valencia, Seville, Bratislava... those could be realistic additions for FR at KEF.

Can any one say what's the alternate for most Europe-Iceland flights?

I suspect that must be EDI or SNN. Don't you think this may have something to do also?

a350lover wrote:

Can any one say what's the alternate for most Europe-Iceland flights?

I suspect that must be EDI or SNN. Don't you think this may have something to do also?

Egilsstadir (BIEG), Akureyri (BIAR), Reykjavik (BIRK) marginal for 737s, Glasgow.

SCQ83 wrote:

a350lover wrote:

I meant Ryanair isn't exactly the number one in Scandinavia. Certainly not in Iceland where they do not operate at all.

Although high-yields and high income doesn't necessarily go together, I believe Ryanair tends to be more successful in "less strong economies", like the ones from South/Eastern Europe where they have a great piece of the market. With lower costs in the operation, and with a target audience which will always care about price.

IMO FR would be a good fit for Iceland. FR could work well at KEF notably linked FR bases in Western Europe which are not currently connected with Iceland and are too small for FI/WW but fit with Ryanair's business model. What Wizzair does in Eastern Europe - KEF.

FR bases like Karlsruhe, Bremen, Bologna, Eindhoven, Charleroi, Marseille, Bergamo, Pisa, Porto, Lisbon, Valencia, Seville, Bratislava... those could be realistic additions for FR at KEF.

I most def agree there...FR could easily connect these bases with KEF on a 2- 3w basis,some seasonal some not, and give Southeuropeans access to Iceland and Icelanders to S.Europe..Primera didthat in summer with its 737 reaching all the way to Rhodes or Cyprus..That s a 6-7h flight from KEF..ATH a Ryanair base could have a 2w flight..Athens and greater metro area along with Northern Peloponese and continental Greece in a radius of 200km use Athens airport..We re talking about a population of 7mil people...Idem for Naples or Lisbon...Also FR could fly to Sicily, Greek islands or Cyprus from KEF..If Wizz is slowly doing it, so can FR..Is it too unrealistic a thought? Afterall, airports that FR damned in the past and said would never fly there, a few yrs later suddenly we saw it landing there..

Ryanair could do a lot of European routes from Iceland. But thinking about how to allocate aircraft, would Iceland routes make as much money as new routes to/from Germany instead ? Especially after the demise of both AirBerlin and many of the wannabe airlines that opened in spring 2018 ?

I suspect (particularly outside peak summer) that Germany will make Ryanair more money and at lower risk - visiting Rekjavik as a tourist outside summer isn't much fun; Icelandic tourism is about the outdoors which necessitates good weather; Germany has a lot more to do indoors. Remember Iceland has 350,000 people while Germany has over 80 million so even in the tourist quiet season, there are plenty more German residents to entice with a flight south

FR did look into KEF back in 2013 (according to this) but they felt that it was too expensive for them (no subsidies). KEF has only become more congested since then and even if there are some incentives in the form of reduced fees in the off-peak hours and season I guess it is still too expensive for FR. They also looked into AEY but felt that the approach there was too difficult.

a350lover wrote:

Pe@rson wrote:

FR carry a lot of business travellers: around 30% - or 40m - of their passengers travel for that reason.

I can live in Berlin, have a meeting in London, use a coworking room, grab my dinner back home at M&S, and do all that in a day flying FR Schoenefeld-Stansted. I'd be traveling for business, but I am pretty sure you get to see the difference. Short-haul business is just about lots of frequencies and AC utilisation. Legacy carriers already do so quite well, but on top of that can maintain decent level of yields in key business routes thanks to the first rows/Business class. Ryanair can just do the first thing.

That pax is equally low-yielding no matter if they fly Ryanair or they fly in row 24D of a British Airways jet. I fully agree on the fact that Ryanair can be a good choice for many people who travel for business purposes, but still of a low-yielding profile.

You said they had no business share and are wrong but why continue by making up a story about a hypothetical trip?

davidjohnson6 wrote:

Ryanair could do a lot of European routes from Iceland. But thinking about how to allocate aircraft, would Iceland routes make as much money as new routes to/from Germany instead ? Especially after the demise of both AirBerlin and many of the wannabe airlines that opened in spring 2018 ?

I suspect (particularly outside peak summer) that Germany will make Ryanair more money and at lower risk - visiting Rekjavik as a tourist outside summer isn't much fun; Icelandic tourism is about the outdoors which necessitates good weather; Germany has a lot more to do indoors. Remember Iceland has 350,000 people while Germany has over 80 million so even in the tourist quiet season, there are plenty more German residents to entice with a flight south

Well they still could introduce flights to KEF from their bases all over Europe..Look at how Wizzair had flooded DTM and LTN with flights without them being bases (up until recently for LTN)..And yes Iceland is where people go in the summer mostly but that has changed lately and people also visit in the winter for the Winter Lights craze the same way they visit Tromso..And Iceland is very beautiful in the winter too..in a different way

arcticcruiser wrote:

a350lover wrote:

Can any one say what's the alternate for most Europe-Iceland flights?

I suspect that must be EDI or SNN. Don't you think this may have something to do also?

Egilsstadir (BIEG), Akureyri (BIAR), Reykjavik (BIRK) marginal for 737s, Glasgow.

Akureyri's approach frightens off airlines and Egilsstadir has somewhat limited apron space, as with Reykjavik. Consequently the foreign carriers tend to favour their stations in Scotland.

marcogr12 wrote:

davidjohnson6 wrote:

Ryanair could do a lot of European routes from Iceland. But thinking about how to allocate aircraft, would Iceland routes make as much money as new routes to/from Germany instead ? Especially after the demise of both AirBerlin and many of the wannabe airlines that opened in spring 2018 ?

I suspect (particularly outside peak summer) that Germany will make Ryanair more money and at lower risk - visiting Rekjavik as a tourist outside summer isn't much fun; Icelandic tourism is about the outdoors which necessitates good weather; Germany has a lot more to do indoors. Remember Iceland has 350,000 people while Germany has over 80 million so even in the tourist quiet season, there are plenty more German residents to entice with a flight south

Well they still could introduce flights to KEF from their bases all over Europe..Look at how Wizzair had flooded DTM and LTN with flights without them being bases (up until recently for LTN)..And yes Iceland is where people go in the summer mostly but that has changed lately and people also visit in the winter for the Winter Lights craze the same way they visit Tromso..And Iceland is very beautiful in the winter too..in a different way

Outside of the Brits, there is very little travel outside of summer, at least that's what the Icelandic government's very thorough figures say.

marcogr12 wrote:

Neither KLM nor HV

Transavia (HV) will fly to Iceland in 2019:
https://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/nieuws/ ... ar-ijsland

Voigt Travel will charter 1 Transavia B737 (not stated if it will be a 700 or 800) weekly until september 2019 for flights from Rotterdam to Akureyri.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

BEABOAC wrote:

bennett123 wrote:

If they are still serious about TATL, then this is an ideal opportunity.

Would finish WOW at the same time.

Ryanair are not ''still'' serious about TATL.

Iceland is only halfway TATL, and honestly Ryanair is on the wrong side of the pond when it comes to competition. The Europe - Iceland market is saturated with LCCs, making it very hard. The America - Iceland market, not so much. No American or Canadian LCC flies to Iceland, Icelandair and WOW Air got that market to themselves.

But would Ryanair, or whatever non-Icelandic European LCC, be allowed to set up a base in Iceland and start flights to America from there? After all Iceland is not a member of the EU. Flights between Iceland and the EU would be no problem, but the other way?

Is there any market on US-iceland flights which is worth in trying it out ?
Iceland is a quite popular holiday destination for Europeans in the summer.But i don`t think there are enough tourists or business people from US to Iceland to start a regular service.
There might be a bit of demand but there are already WOW and Icelandair on the market and i don`t think a third carrier would work.
Iceland is a perfect place for a stop on TATL routes for B738 or A321 but not as a destination itself.

Just here to

Picture it: Summer 2025. WN and FR announce a new interline agreement and TATL service to commence S26. WN and FR will establish a joint connecting hub at KEF. Each airline will share ground handling and mx operations at KEF while the IT departments at both airlines work together to develop a new joint booking/ticketing system which will simplify and improve the customer experience for both airlines.

adam47150 wrote:

Just here to

Picture it: Summer 2025. WN and FR announce a new interline agreement and TATL service to commence S26. WN and FR will establish a joint connecting hub at KEF. Each airline will share ground handling and mx operations at KEF while the IT departments at both airlines work together to develop a new joint booking/ticketing system which will simplify and improve the customer experience for both airlines.

Highly unlikely since they're very different airlines, however the idea itself is not bad. Only not on these airlines. I could see this work between Frontier and Wizzair, who ultimately share the same owner (Indigo Partners). That makes them potential interline partners for each other, and the product on board is similar. Wizzair already flies to Iceland from Europe and should Frontier do so from the USA they'd logically connect those flights to each other.